Adjusted
by whipplefilter
Summary: After Doc's death, Sally and Mack try to find Lightning a new crew chief. Doc can't be replaced, though - which is fine until maybe one day, it's not.


"'Adjusted' is... a word for it," Sally replies, when Strip Weathers asks her if Lightning's doing okay. They've never spoken before. She's seen him around - he's been coaching his nephew, and after Doc's passing, Sally's made a point of spending more time around the track - but Strip has a way about him that makes it feel like this is part of a long and comfortable conversation that they've had going for years. Sally doesn't talk to just anyone about Lightning, but she feels at ease with Strip when he asks.

Lightning's spent his whole life believing that loss is unacceptable. And it's become abundantly clear to Sally that in Lightning's mind, losing something - like a race - and losing some _one_ are poorly distinguished. So, yes. 'Adjusted,' no adjectives, is about as good as she's willing to claim.

She'd thought maybe it was a racecar thing, though the look Strip gives her says otherwise. He looks like he wants to help but can't quite wrap his head around what the issue is, exactly. He'd have talked to Lightning before he talked to her, and maybe Lightning's response was just several shades too obsessive to relate to.

That's how she feels, sometimes.

* * *

She and Mack hire a new crew chief. Lightning is amenable, if disengaged. Mack is precious, Sally learns - he knows exactly what Lightning will want, who will be good for him.

It's a match made in heaven, until it isn't.

Nine weeks in, Sally is sitting in an air conditioned room with the crew chief and her lawyer, and they are asking to break contract.

She can't keep comparing herself to Dr. Hudson, says the crew chief. It's bad for her self-image, and it's not working out. But she really does wish Mr. McQueen the best.

"I'm sorry!" Lightning blurts out when Sally sees him next, because he knows why she's here and he knows what she'll want to talk about.

"Let's just go to dinner," says Sally.

* * *

He tries, at first. He really does. But after the fourth resignation of the season, it's clear he's fallen into a too-familiar pattern. When Sally introduces the next prospective, she can see in his eyes that Lightning and crew chief #5 have already parted ways. She hasn't even said his name yet.

And, well, maybe that's fine. He's adjusted in most other ways. There were some hiccups in Tokyo, the particularities of which Sally's never quite been clear on, but it's not as though Doc's death is ruling his life - just that podium. As time passes, Lightning's weirdness about Doc's death becomes more and more self-contained, and if all it means is an empty line on the staff roster and an empty space to keep Doc's memory, far be it from her to push. As long as Lightning's in a good mood, he does exceptionally well with it all - and Lightning's generally in a good mood. It makes him difficult to worry about and easy to trust.

* * *

It's years before Lightning can answer press questions about Doc without looking immediately like he'd rather be anywhere else. But eventually he does, and with gusto, and the pride and love and respect in his responses far outstrips any pain.

Sally and Strip meet each other's eyes once, while Strip is busy guiding his nephew to his pit box. Cal wobbles on pudgy, anaphylactic tires; he has a dozen McQueen balloons tied to his butt. Strip smiles faintly at her, and Sally returns the gesture.

* * *

But the thing about adjustment is, it's contingent, and Lightning doesn't have stopgaps. Either he's in a good mood, or he's not. There aren't warning sirens. And Storm happens so fast no one could have sounded them, even if there were. The Next-Gens take everyone by surprise.

Warning or no warning, mood or no mood, Lightning is a professional, and he handles it as such. It'd be a misnomer to say he works harder - that, he was already doing - but he works more singularly. After Cal, and Bobby, and Brick are gone, he doesn't try to make friends. Not with Storm, of course, but with none of the other newcomers, either. It's all performance. No camaraderie, no heart.

Three-quarters of the way through the season, racing stops being fun for him. Sally notices, but she's not sure that he does.

Maybe after Los Angeles, she thinks, they'll talk. She wishes Doc were here.

Sometimes Sally forgets that Lightning's not the only one who misses him.

* * *

She'll never forget again. For four months, four months after she watches the love of her life fly through the air, bleed sparks into the pavement, crunch again, and again, (and _again)_ she wonders -

The first thing she does is look to the crew chief's podium - she looks for Doc-but it's empty. Then she looks for Strip's, but that's empty, too. The entire Dinoco pit box is empty.

For four months, she wonders: If someone had been up there to tell him to stop, would he have listened? If someone were up there, would they have told him to back down? Would they have been able to see?

Could they have saved him?

Because Sally's read the headlines. Most crashes, you can manage a little something. Not a lot - obviously, or you'd keep yourself in the race - but just enough. But Lightning had no control at all. He'd been redlining as it was, probably would have lost it soon after, even if that tire hadn't blown. He'd been too deep in, and no one had stopped him. In the more technical racing periodicals - which of course Sally reads; she's his lawyer - there was talk of even revising the rules next season, to make what had happened impossible. (Or at least, illegal.)

* * *

Once back in Radiator Springs, Lightning spends a whole month doing nothing but watch Doc's old racing reels. No one asks her how he's doing, because it seems clear enough. They give him his space.

* * *

One night, though, he goes to the Butte. No meters, no drills. He flies through the corners and kicks up whirlwinds. The earth in the sky shimmers under the moonlight, a spackle of shale and sandy dust. He's not thinking, just racing. He's just happy to be alive, and he knows what makes him feel most that way. He knows what he wants.

Sally knows what he needs.

"All right, Doc," she says to the ground as she watches Lightning fly. "Let's do this."


End file.
